Highlights

Patrick Maroon tied the game about a minute after the Panthers opened the scoring with a power play goal. He did a good job to slide a rebound past James Reimer, but the real star of this play was Connor McDavid. He took a beating behind the net with slashes and cross checks but still managed to get the puck out to the point before Yohann Auvitu got it on net. It’s simply ridiculous there wasn’t a call on this play.

In the second period, Leon Draisaitl would give the Oilers the lead with a penalty shot snipe, but the Panthers tied the game a few minutes later. Drake Caggiula then restored the lead, but, again, the Panthers quickly tied it up. Florida would go on to score a couple of power play goals to kick off the third period.

Anton Slepyshev would pull them back to within one with a nice snipe seconds after Florida’s fifth goal. It’s nice to see Slepyshev healthy and playing like the guy we saw back in the playoffs last year. That goal was all skating and shot, which is his calling card. But of course, Florida regained their two-goal lead just a few minutes later.

Connor McDavid! With five minutes to go, the captain grabbed a puck in the high slot and ripped it past James Reimer to bring the Oilers back to within one. Florida would score an empty netter to ultimately take the game 7-5.

By the numbers

The Panthers were the better team in the first period, controlling the shot attempts at even strength 24 to 18. It was split evenly 17 to 17 in the second period, then, in the third, the Oilers put their foot on the gas and had 28 shot attempts to Florida’s 15. Of course, even strength didn’t matter a hell of a lot because Edmonton’s penalty kill was junk again. Florida had four power play opportunities and they scored on three of them. The Oilers didn’t get a single chance on the power play all game, as the only call that went in their favour was Draisaitl’s penalty shot.

Thoughts…

I generally avoid pinning a loss on the goalie, but Cam Talbot’s performance last night was far from good enough to help the team win. Talbot faced 39 shots and stopped 33 of them. Obviously you don’t want to be allowing 39 shots, but a few of the goals he let in were soft ones he should be stopping. When you score five goals — James Reimer wasn’t good at all either — you really should be coming out on top.

The penalty kill. Woof. Three goals against on four opportunities. I think a part of it also comes down to Talbot not making stops, but the penalty killers certainly aren’t making life easy on him. You notice when the Oilers have the power play and teams swarm around and make life difficult for them? How they can’t just stand there and look for perfect passes? Well, the Oilers don’t seem to recognize how well that works on them, so instead, they stand there and hope the other team just skates around and kills the clock. Maybe the home and road PK splits are so bad because Talbot, having twins and all, gets no sleep when he’s at home. Who knows! At this point, it’s mind-numbing to even think about.

The reffing was very bad last night. The Oilers didn’t get a single power play and Connor McDavid got the ever-loving crap slashed out of him on multiple occasions. It’s amazing to me that the league is just OK with young star players get hacked like that. I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest if a player was able to come out with a lead pipe and just hack away at Connor’s arms whenever he had the puck given the way the reffing has gone on him this season.

All in all I don’t think the team wasn’t all that bad last night. As the numbers suggest, they played a tightly-contested game at even strength and they had a very good third period. Of course, they were playing Florida, a team that’s pretty bad, so matching them isn’t something to be proud of. But still, had some calls gone their way, the Oilers easily could have earned a win last night. At least it was exciting? Goals are fun? I don’t know. You just have to ride it out and try to find something to make it worth watching at this point.

Dreams become reality with the 38th Big Brothers Big Sisters Dream Home Lottery!

This year, the grand prize winner will get their choice of one of two stunning million dollar Dream Homes plus $150,000 Cash! Just one $25 ticket gets you the chance at more amazing prizes than ever – but only if you buy early! We’ve got three cash early birds and a chance at $1,000 a day for 30 days in March. And, for an extra $5, you could take home up to half a million dollars with our Win50.

Every ticket you purchase means kids will continue to benefit from mentoring and after school programs that change their lives. Buy Your Tickets Here

With the season being over, I would like to see more focus on player development and regrouping for next year. Let’s play guys like Pulu 20 minutes and Cammaleri 9 minutes and not the other way around like it was last night. Give our RFAs a chance to prove their worth and keep McDavid with Maroon to increase his deadline value.

Ok. Stop that intelligent dialog. You’re talking about the coaching staff of the EDMONTON OILERS. You’re making way to much sense. A real team, that recognizes the season is lost, will start RETOOLING NOW, as you basically suggest, not in the summer, . Do you really think, after watching this coaching group, for too long already, that they have the intelligence to recognize that’s the right thing to do? I don’t.

Faces and names change, the nepotism and incompetence remains. Clean house in management, this regime and the previous regime have proven ad nasuem that they are clueless and do not deserve any more chances.

Management obviously doesn’t care about wins; the team has NINE more LOSSES than wins this season.
They’re tied for 28th place!!!
Coach won’t call the league out on their officiating and neither will the GM; they have a BILLIONAIRE owner; take the fine to get some calls going your way already.

Why can’t we support the puck out of our zone. Why are our forwards always sitting up at the opponent blue line? How do we think we can generate speed through the neutral zone when everyone has to enter the zone from a full stop?

Watch Florida last night. Their feet never stopped moving and they attacked us with speed all night. A 500 team made us look like a beer league team last night.

We are so much better than this. Is it coaching or just reluctance to move the puck quickly?

For heavens sake…we are worse than Vancouver in the standings. Like seriously…

To me this is all about Todd Mclellan’s system and it drives me absolutely insane too. Hockey has changed and he’s not adapting his systems and we have a team that is ridiculously predictable in every play they try to make.

At this point I’m really just hoping they can rectify this and be somewhat competitive by next season for Connors sake. I have been a fan of this team for a long time, if McDavid were to ever request to be let out of this mess I might have to leave with him.

“All in all I don’t think the team was all that bad last night.”
Would have to disagree with you there.
-Lost momentum twice by getting scored on right after they scored
-Is there another breakout they can use other rimming the puck and hoping?
– I thought Russel was awful, hanging on to the puck way too long (even Remenda pointed that out)
– PK – groundhog day
– PP – laughable
– individual mistakes which led to goals – plenty

Boston is a fast and quick team. I don’t think Maroon fits that squad. And i’m pretty sure they are not going to do any favors for Pete. Maybe he’s scouting to try and figure out how a team with 6 rookies as regulars, are at the top of the league.

“But still, had some calls gone their way, the Oilers easily could have earned a win last night.”

You have seen our power play right? I suspect that even if they had made some calls it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference. Actually, FLA leads the league in SHG. Probably would have given up one of those while we were at it.

Make the trades. #1 Lucic if possible and pick up part of that horendous contract.#2 Letestu for picks. #3 Cammalleri for picks. #4 Montoya to get back that 5th round pick. #5 Maroon if it has to be done and the return is large. #6 TALBOT trade this bum or get a legit #1 goalie, this trade would be next to impossible cause he stinks.

Can we stop mentioning a Lucic trade? He might have the worst contract in the NHL and its 4 more years. I highly doubt he would agree to be traded to another bottom feeder and no contender would want him unless the Oil retained a large majority of the contract. Maybe he can develop a mysterious allergy to his equipment and they can put him on the LTIR for a couple years?

No. Human pylon Dion Phaneuf has the worst contract in the NHL. Ottawa pays him $7M a year through to 20-21 and his modified NMC meant they lost Methot to Vegas when Phaneuf wouldn’t budge.
Yet somehow the Leafs managed to dump him.

Pretty sure you cant waive a guy with a NMC. Buyout or trade/retain major salary are likely the only options. Good luck finding any takers, teams are going younger and faster. Old and slow doesn’t sell.

Lucic contract is buyout prof……You can not buyout his contract.
The only way is if he agrees on a trade.
As the GM you have to recognize that the cap hit is more important then the players skill, he has to man up and tell Lucic that he won’t play unless he agrees to a trade…….that’s the only way Lucic can be traded.

NMC contract is essentially a straight jacket contract.
You cannot trade the player (unless he approves).
You cannot waive the player. You cannot loan the player to another team. You cannot send him to the minors either (without his approval), even for a conditioning stint.

CLAUSE DETAILS: June 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022 – Modified NTC: Submits a list of 8 teams he can be traded to / July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 – Modified NTC: Submits a list of 10 teams he can be traded to
CLAUSE SOURCE: CapFriendly

Or Hossa with a skin condition. LOL. Anybody actually buy that? The Leafs and all American franchises seem to be able to make contracts disappear at will. Not available to the other 6 Canadian Franchises. Complete farce.
#stillnotwatching